Hell Exists Even For Those Who Don't Believe In It Until They Get There

"Jesus came to tell us everyone is wanted in paradise, and that hell, about which little gets said today, exists and is eternal for those who shut their hearts to His love.”

 

~ Pope Benedict XVI ~

Gloria Polo Testimony: How She Was Shown The Reality of Hell and Demons

Gloria Polo died after being terribly burned by a lightning bolt on May 5, 1995 in Bogotá, Colombia; she was judged, and then came back to life. This is her testimony.

But first I must tell you something, brothers: I was a “dietetic (cafeteria) Catholic”, I was for my whole life, because my relationship with God was taken care of in a 25 minute Sunday Mass, and that’s all. I went to the Mass where the priest spoke less, because I got tired! What anguish I felt, with those priests who spoke a lot! This was my relationship with God! For this all the worldly currents drug me along: I lacked the protection of prayer well done with faith, even in the Mass! One day, when I was studying for the specialization, I heard a priest affirm that hell does not exist, and not even the demons! It was precisely what I wanted to hear! I immediately thought to myself: if the demons do not exist, and there is no hell, then we all go to Heaven! And thus, what is there to fear?!

What makes me most sad now, and I confess to you with great shame, is that the only tie that still held me in the Church, was the fear of the devil. When I heard that hell does not exist, I immediately said: very good, if we all go to Heaven, it is not important what we are or what we do!

This determined my total moving away from the Lord. I distanced myself from the Church and I began to speak badly, with cusswords, etc. I no longer had any fear of sin, and I began to ruin my relationship with God. I began to say to everyone that the demons do not exist, that they are the inventions of the priests, that they are the manipulations on the part of the Church, and finally… I arrived to the point of saying to my colleagues at the University that God does not exist, that we were products of evolution, etc. etc., succeeding in influencing many people.

Let us return now to the operating room: when I saw myself in that situation, what terrible fright! I finally saw that the demons existed, and how, and they came to seek precisely me! They came to present to me the bill, one could say, since I had accepted their offers of sin! And these offers are not free! One pays!! My sins had their consequences...

In that moment, then, I began to see come out, of the wall of the operating room, so many persons, apparently common, normal, but with a look full of hate, diabolic, frightening, who made my soul tremble: I immediately perceived that we were dealing with demons. I had in myself a special awareness: I understood in fact that to each one of these I owed something, that sin is not gratuitous, and that the principle lie of the devil is to say that he does not exist: this is his best strategy in order to work as he pleases with us. I realized that yes, he exists, and that he came to surround me, to seek me! Just imagine the fright, the terror!!

~ Gloria Polo;  excerpt from here ~

Meditation on the Pains of Hell

CHAPTER 20

The Pains of Hell

CHRIST:

MY CHILD, I have proved My goodness by My numberless gifts to men. They cannot mention a single good thing in their daily life which does not belong to Me. My love for them was proved by My earthly life of labor, work, suffering and prayer to obtain forgiveness for their sins. Anyone who takes time to think of what I deserve, cannot deny that he owes Me more than he can ever repay. Yet, in spite of My goodness and love, some people choose to walk away from Me. They refuse to follow My directions. As a result they fall into sin. Though I made them for Heaven, they shall never see it because they are refusing to do what it takes to get there.

2. Hell was made for the devil and his rebel angels. Man was made for Heaven. In refusing to live for Heaven, a man chooses to exist without Me. He shall have his wish--he shall join the rebel angels in hell. In refusing to follow My law, a man actually turns his back on Me as the fallen angels did. If he dies in this condition, he condemns himself to hell. The jury which convicts him is his own sinful life. I merely pronounce sentence on what he himself has chosen.

3. There is nothing on earth which can compare with hell. It is beyond all description. One must see it to know it. Though I may try to give you some small idea of it in this chapter, remember, this is a tiny and very imperfect idea of the real thing. Words fall far short of the reality which is hell. I make no threats here. I simply want you to face this fact: Unless you live for Heaven, you shall one day be in hell.

4. All the sufferings known to man are as nothing in comparison with the sufferings of hell. The wise man would rather bear any trial on earth than place himself in danger of hell. One single hour of hell will be harder than a hundred years of suffering on earth. In this earthly life people have some rest from their labors and trials. They get some measure of consolation from their friends. In hell, however, there is no rest, no consolation, and no friends.

5. The fires of hell will never die. There will be no end to suffering. One will find no comfort in knowing that he has been there a thousand years. He can never hope for an end to his tortures. All the other sufferings would be bearable if only the damned could hope for relief. Despair is hell's bitterest pain.

6. In hell a man will be punished through the same faults by which he sinned on earth. Each sin will have its own particular torment. The lazy will be forced to work continuously. The gluttonous will be tormented with extreme hunger and thirst. The proud will be filled with confusion, and the greedy will feel the pinch of miserable want.

7. And yet, the worst pain of hell is none of these. The people in hell would gladly bear all of this and much more if only they could hope for My friendship and love, no matter how long it might take, be it even a billion years from now. Their keenest torment is that they have forever lost Me, the Source of all true joy and perfect happiness. This suffering makes hell the home of despair and undying hatred.

8. My child, follow My Will in your daily life, and you need never fear hell. In fact you have every reason to be joyful and merry if you are following My commandments and using My sacraments. Do not condemn yourself to hell by refusing to obey My directions. I love you dearly. Do not prevent Me from taking you to Heaven.

THINK:

Hell is a fact. Christ, Our Lord, pointed this out time and again during His earthly life. Whoever rejects this fact is simply denying the word of Christ. He is God. He proved His divine power many times during and after His earthly life. His word is truth. He preached the truth of hell and continues to preach it today through His Church and Holy Scripture.

PRAY:

My Jesus, many find too hard a command in the words: "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me." Yet a much harder command will be: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire." If I become so impatient with a little suffering now, how can I ever stand hell? I cannot expect to have unrestricted enjoyment on earth and still rejoice with You in Heaven. Therefore, dear Lord, that I may be safe from eternal punishment, let me do my best in bearing the burdens of this earthly life. Let me prefer to suffer on earth or even die now rather than commit a mortal sin. Amen.

~ Excerpt from MY DAILY BREAD byAnthony J. Paone, S.J., 1954 ~

Cry of a Lost Soul: Society of the Damned

"We died with willful resolve to be separated from God. Do you now understand why hell lasts forever? It is because our wills were fixed for eternity at the moment of death. We had made our final choice. Our obstinacy will never leave us.

"Under compulsion, I must add that God is merciful even towards us. I affirm many things against my will and must choke the torrent of abuses I should like to vomit out.

“God was merciful to us by not allowing our wicked wills to exhaust themselves on earth as we should have been prepared to do. This would have increased our faults and our pains. He caused us to die before our time, as in my case, or had other mitigating circumstances intervene. Now He shows Himself merciful towards us by not compelling a closer approach than that afforded in this remote inferno. Every step bringing us closer to God would cause us a greater pain than that which a step closer to a burning furnace would cause you." 

"I tell you, the fire of which the Bible speaks does not mean the torment of the conscience. Fire is fire! What He said: ‘Away from Me, you accursed ones, into eternal fire’, is to be understood literally. Literally! How can the spirit be touched by material fire, you will ask? How can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger on the flame? In fact the soul does not burn; and yet what torture all the individual feels! 

"Our greatest torture consists in the certain knowledge that we shall never see God. How can this torture us so much, since on earth we are so indifferent? As long as the knife lies on the table it leaves you cold. You see how keen it is, but you do not feel it. Plunge the knife into the flesh and you will start screaming in pain. Now we feel the loss of God; before we only thought of it.

"Not all the souls suffer to the same degree. With how greater wickedness and how more systematically one has sinned, the more weighs on him the loss of God and the more the creature he abused is choking him. The lost Catholics suffer more than those of other religions, because they, mostly, received and despised more graces and more light. He who knew more suffers more cruelly than he who knew less. He who sinned out of malice suffers more keenly than he who sinned out of weakness. But nobody suffers more than he deserves. Oh, if that were not true, I should have a motive to hate!"

~ Revelation of a Soul from Hell; excerpt from here ~

Jesus Reveals to Sr. Consolata Betrone How Free Will Sends Souls to Hell

"Believe Me, Consolata, into hell go only those who really wish to go there; for though no one can snatch a soul from Me, the soul may , through the free will granted her, flee from Me, may betray Me, deny Me, and so go to Satan of her own volition."

"You see, final impenitence is found only in a soul who purposely wishes to go to hell and therefore obstinately refuses My mercy, for I never refuse to pardon anyone!  I offer the gift of My immense compassion to all, for My Blood was shed for all, for all!  No, it is not the multiplicity of sins which condemns a soul, for I forgive everything if she repents, but it is the obstinacy of not wishing to be pardoned, of wishing to be damned.  Dismas on the cross had only one single act of faith in Me, but many, many sins;  he was pardoned in an instant, however, and on the very day of his repentance he entered into My kingdom and is a saint!  Behold the triumph of My mercy and of faith in Me!"

~ Jesus to Sr. Consolata Betrone;

excerpts from Jesus Appeals to the World by Fr. Lorenzo Sales, I.M.C.~

Fr. William Doyle: Hell--Motivation for Living Each Moment Perfectly

I can imagine I am a soul in hell,

and God in His mercy is saying to me,

" Return to the world for this year

and on your manner of life during the year

will depend your returning to hell or not."

What a life I should lead !

How little I should think of suffering, of mortification !

How I would rejoice in suffering !

How perfectly each moment would be spent !

If God treated me as I deserved, I should be in hell now.

Shall I ever again have cause for grumbling or complaining,

no matter what may happen ?

My habit of constantly speaking uncharitably of others,

and, in general, faults of the tongue,

seem to me the chief reason why I derive so little fruit from my Mass and spiritual duties.
Nothing dries up the fountains of grace so much as an affection for sin.

~ Fr. William Doyle ~

Source

Saint Faustina: Is Hell Real? Do People Go To Hell?

"I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence. I cannot speak about it now; but I have received a command from God to leave it in writing. The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God's mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, than offend You by the least sin."

~ Saint Faustina; excerpt 741 from The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska ~

Blessed Alexandrina da Costa: Heroic Victim Soul for the Salvation of Sinners

"My daughter, suffering is the key to Heaven. 
 I have endured so much to open Heaven for all mankind, but for many it was in vain. 
They say 'I want to enjoy life, I have come into the world only for enjoyment.' 
They say 'Hell does not exist.'
I have died for them, and they say they did not ask Me to do so. 
They have formed heresies against Me.

In order to save them, I select certain souls and lay the Cross on their shoulders.
Happy the soul who understands the value of suffering!
My cross is sweet if carried for love of Me...
I chose you from your mother's womb.
I watch over you in your great difficulties.
It was I who chose them for you, that I might have a victim to offer Me much reparation.
Lean on my Sacred Heart and find therein strength to suffer everything."

~ Jesus to Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa ~

"Sinners of the world, do not lose Jesus for all eternity.  He is so good..."

"...Enough of sin.  Love Him!  Love Him!"

"O sinners, I am enduring a life of terrible suffering on your behalf.

Convert yourselves!  Sin no more!  Sin no more!"

~ Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa ~

This is a trailer for a 56 minute documentary on the life and message of Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa who is also known in Portugal as the Fourth Seer of Fatima. This film has been produced by Mary's Dowry Productions to promote the life and message of this Blessed, closely linked to the message of Fatima, strong advocate of the First Saturday devotions and Fatima message. A victim soul, she suffered mystically the Passion of Christ every Friday although paralized from the age of 14 having jumped from a high window to escape intruders and protect her purity. More information at http://www.marysdowryproductions.org/

~ Related post on Blessed Alexandrina ~

Dr. Gloria Polo Testimony: Demons, Hell and a Devastating Review of Her Life

“You will go back, but you won’t repeat this 1000 times. You will repeat it 1000 times 1000. And woe of those who don’t change their ways despite having heard you, because they will be judged much more severely, just like you will when you come back here again, even their anointed or their priests, or any of them, because the worst deafness is that of a man who refuses to hear.”

~ Jesus to Gloria Polo ~

 

12. When I was under anesthesia, I came out of my body again. I saw what the surgeons were doing to my body. I was worried for my legs. All of a sudden I went through a moment of horror. I had been a “dieting Catholic” all my life. My relationship with the Lord was down to Sunday Eucharist, no longer than 25 minutes, wherever the priest’s homily was shortest, because I couldn’t stand anything longer. That was my relationship with the Lord. All the trends of the world tossed me like a windsock. In fact, when I was already in graduate school, I once heard a priest say that hell didn’t exist and neither did demons. That was the only thing that had kept me in the Church. When I was told the devil didn’t exist, I just thought we were all going to heaven regardless of who we were. That distanced me completely from the Lord. My conversations became bad, because sin was not contained inside of me. I started telling everyone that demons didn’t exist, that they had been invented by the priests, that they were manipulations. Hanging out with college friends I started to say that God didn’t exist and that we were the sole product of evolution.

13. But back to that instant in the operating room, I was really terrified! I saw demons coming for me and I was their pay. At that moment I saw many people coming out of the walls of the operating room. At first sight they looked normal, but with a look of hatred on their faces, a horrible look. At that point through some special insight given to me, I realized I owed each one of them. I realized sin was not for free and that the main infamy and lie of the devil was to state that he didn’t exist. I saw how they were coming for me. You can imagine how scared I was. This scientific and intellectual mind was of no avail to me. I bounced off the floor, into my body, trying to come into it again, but my body wouldn’t let me in. I ran away and I’m not sure when I went through the wall in the operating room. I was hoping to hide in some hallway in the hospital but I ended up jumping into thin air.

14. I went into some tunnels heading downward. At first, they had light and looked like bee hives. There were lots of people. But I started descending and light became scarce and I started roaming some tunnels in pitch darkness. That darkness has no comparison. The darkest darkness on earth is like noontime sunlight compared to it. That darkness causes pain, horror, and shame. And it smells very bad. I finished descending down those tunnels and landed desperately on a flat spot. I used to claim I had an iron will, that nothing was too much for me. But that was useless now, because I wanted to climb up and I couldn’t. At that point I saw a huge mouth opening up on the floor and I felt immense emptiness in my body, a bottomless abyss. The most horrifying thing about that hole was that not even a bit of God’s love was felt in it, not a drop of hope. The hole sucked me in and I felt terrified.

~ Dr. Gloria Polo; excerpt from here; her website homepage here ~

~ Another more detailed testimony of Dr. Gloria Polo ~

St. Alphonsus Liguori & Fr. Edgardo Arellano: Sacrilegious Confession

"The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open:

 he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins.

Before we fall into sin, the enemy labours to blind us,

that we may not see the evil we do

and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God.

After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb,

that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession."

~ St. Alphonsus Liguori ~

St. Faustina's Vision of Two Roads: Destination Heaven or Hell

One day, I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them. And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their sufferings.

~ St. Faustina; excerpt 153 from The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska ~

Saint Faustina's Testimony About the Tortures of Hell Shown to Her

"I am writing this at the command of God,

so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell,

or that nobody has ever been there,

and so no one can say what it is like."

"Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one's condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it--a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God's anger; the fifth torture is continual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and, despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.

"I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence. I cannot speak about it now; but I have received a command from God to leave it in writing. The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God's mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, than offend You by the least sin."

~  Saint Faustina; excerpt 741  from The  Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska  ~

St. Anthony Mary Claret on Hell: Eternal Consequences of Unrepented Mortal Sin

“A multitude of souls fall into the depths of Hell, and it is of the faith that all who die in mortal sin are condemned for ever and ever. According to statistics, approximately 80,000 persons die every day. How many of these will die in mortal sin, and how many will be condemned! For, as their lives have been, so also will be their end.”

~ Saint Anthony Mary Claret ~

Mother Angelica: Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell

"Everyone in Heaven radiates God in a different way and degree. Each one will have that degree of love and union he had at the moment of death. When we die, we cease to merit; we cease to use our talents; it is the time of reward or punishment. Whatever talents we have been given, used, and increased will be ours for all eternity. We will be rewarded in proportion to the way our free will chose God above ourselves and the world."

~ Mother Angelica: excerpt from Inside the Kingdom ~

St. Francis of Assisi: Eternal Consequences of Dying in Unrepented Mortal Sin

"We should all realize that no matter where or how a man dies,

if he is in the state of mortal sin and does not repent,

 when he could have done so and did not,

the Devil tears his soul from his body with such anguish and distress

 that only a person who has experienced it can appreciate it. "

~ St. Francis of Assisi ~

~ Is It a Mortal Sin to Miss Mass on Sunday? ~
~ Is Missing Sunday Mass a Mortal Sin? ~

St. Leonard of Port Maurice: "No One Goes To Hell Unless He Wants To"

"What is the use of knowing whether few or many are saved? Saint Peter says to us, "Strive by good works to make your election sure." When Saint Thomas Aquinas's sister asked him what she must do to go to heaven, he said, "You will be saved if you want to be." I say the same thing to you, and here is proof of my declaration. No one is damned unless he commits mortal sin: that is of faith. And no one commits mortal sin unless he wants to: that is an undeniable theological proposition. Therefore, no one goes to hell unless he wants to; the consequence is obvious. Does that not suffice to comfort you? Weep over past sins, make a good confession, sin no more in the future, and you will all be saved. Why torment yourself so? For it is certain that you have to commit mortal sin to go to hell, and that to commit mortal sin you must want to, and that consequently no one goes to hell unless he wants to. That is not just an opinion, it is an undeniable and very comforting truth; may God give you to understand it, and may He bless you. Amen."

~ From Sermon by St. Leonard of  Port Maurice ~

Revelation of Jesus to St. Bridget: Only Pure Souls Enter Heaven

"Tell my friends three things. When I was bodily in the world, I adjusted my words so that good men were made stronger and more fervent in doing good things, and evil men became better, as was seen in the conversion of Magdalene, Matthew, and many others. I also adjusted my words so that my enemies were not able to refute them. For that reason, may they to whom my words are sent, work with fervor, so that through my words, the good may become more ardent in goodness, the evil repent from wickedness, and that they themselves be on guard against my enemies so that my words are not obstructed. In truth, I do no greater injustice to the devil than to the angels in Heaven. For if I wanted, I could speak my words so that the whole world hears them. I could also open up hell so that everyone may see its torments, but this would not be justice, since all men would then serve me out of fear, when they should serve me out of love. For no other than the one who has love shall enter the kingdom of Heaven. For I would be doing injustice to the devil if I took away from him one who is rightfully his, because of sin, and who is devoid of good deeds. I would also do injustice to the angel in Heaven, if I placed the spirit of an unclean man as an equal to the one who is pure and most fervent in my love.

"Therefore, no one shall enter Heaven, but the one who has been purged like gold in the fire of purgatory or who has proved himself over a long duration of time in good deeds on earth so that there is no stain in him left to be purged away. If you do not know to whom my words should be sent, I will tell you: The one who is worthy to have my words is the one who wants to gain merit through good deeds in order to come to the kingdom of Heaven or who already has deserved it with their good deeds in the past. To such as these shall my words be opened up to and enter into them. Those who have a taste for my words and who humbly hope that their names are written in the Book of Life keep my words. But those who have no have taste for my words, consider them first, but then throw up and vomit them out immediately."

~ Jesus to St. Bridget ~

Fr. Barron Comments on Hell

God's Revelation is Clear That Punishment in Hell is Eternal

God's Revelation is clear that there is a hell. In denying this Jehovah's deny Scripture and the Church Fathers. Ave Maria!

Pope Benedict XVI: God's Justice--Heaven, Hell, Purgatory

Fr Pietro Riggi, a Salesian from Don Bosco Boys' Town: ... My question is: on 25 March 2007, you spoke extemporaneously complaining how seldom the "last things" are mentioned today. In fact, in the catechisms of the Italian Bishops' Conference used for teaching our faith to children for confession, Communion and confirmation, it seems to me that certain truths of the faith have been omitted. Hell is never mentioned, nor Purgatory, Heaven only once, sin only once and then only original sin. In lacking these essential parts of our belief does it not seem to you that the whole system of logic which leads one to see Christ's Redemption has crumbled? By the absence of any mention of sin, by not speaking of Hell, even Christ's Redemption seems diminished. Do you not think that this has encouraged a loss of the sense of sin, hence, of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and even of the saving, sacramental figure of the priest himself, who has the power to absolve and celebrate in Christ's name? Today, unfortunately, when the Gospel speaks of Hell we priests circumvent even the Gospel. Hell is not mentioned. Or we are unable to talk about Heaven. We cannot speak of eternal life. We risk giving faith a purely horizontal dimension or one where the horizontal is too detached from the vertical. And this unfortunately occurs in catechesis for children, quite apart from the initiatives of parish priests; it lacks a basic structure....

Pope Benedict XVI: You correctly spoke of the fundamental themes of the faith which unfortunately rarely appear in our preaching. In the Encyclical Spe Salvi I wanted to speak precisely about the Last Judgement, judgement in general, and in this context also about Purgatory, Hell and Heaven... When one does not know the judgement of God one does not know the possibility of Hell, of the radical and definitive failure of life, one does not know the possibility of and need for purification...

...In the Encyclical I tried to show that it is God's Last Judgement that guarantees justice. We all want a just world. Yet we cannot atone for all the destruction of the past, all the people unjustly tortured and killed. God alone can create justice, which must be justice for all, even for the dead, and as the great Marxist Adorno said, only the resurrection of the body, which he claimed as unreal, would be able to create justice. We believe in this resurrection of the body in which not all will be equal. Today people have become used to thinking: what is sin? God is great, he knows us, so sin does not count; in the end God will be kind to us all. It is a beautiful hope. But both justice and true guilt exist. Those who have destroyed man and the earth cannot suddenly sit down at God's table together with their victims. God creates justice. We must keep this in mind. Therefore, I felt it was important to write this text also about Purgatory, which for me is an obvious truth, so evident and also so necessary and comforting that it could not be absent. I tried to say: perhaps those who have destroyed themselves in this way, who are for ever unredeemable, who no longer possess any elements on which God's love can rest, who no longer have a minimal capacity for loving, may not be so numerous. This would be Hell. On the other hand, those who are so pure that they can enter immediately into God's communion are undoubtedly few - or at any rate not many. A great many of us hope that there is something in us that can be saved, that there may be in us a final desire to serve God and serve human beings, to live in accordance with God. Yet there are so very many wounds, there is so much filth. We need to be prepared, to be purified. This is our hope: even with so much dirt in our souls, in the end the Lord will give us the possibility, he will wash us at last with his goodness that comes from his Cross. In this way he makes us capable of being for him in eternity. And thus Heaven is hope, it is justice brought about at last. He also gives us criteria by which to live, so that this time may be in some way paradise, a first gleam of paradise. Where people live according to these criteria a hint of paradise appears in the world and is visible. It also seems to me to be a demonstration of the truth of faith, of the need to follow the road of the Commandments, of which we must speak further. These really are road signs on our way and show us how to live well, how to choose life. Therefore, we must also speak of sin and of the sacrament of forgiveness and reconciliation. A sincere person knows that he is guilty, that he must start again, that he must be purified. And this is the marvellous reality which the Lord offers us: there is a chance of renewal, of being new. The Lord starts with us again and in this way we can also start again with the others in our life.

MEETING WITH THE PARISH PRIESTS AND THE CLERGY
OF THE DIOCESE OF ROME

Excerpt from ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Hall of Blessings
Thursday, 7 February 2008